Hi.

Depending on your data, it is not guaranteed to give you the same data in the same order each time. Imagine these situations:

1) The "cemp" table contains more than 9 rows with the same "smallest" status. The order of the rows within this status will be totally dependant on what is already in cache and which blocks get read first from disk etc. As a result your ordering is not specific enough.

2) You only have nine rows of the same "smallest" status. The same rows would be returned each time, but the order of the rows is not guaranteed.

These are two very specific cases, but the problem can obviously be much bigger.

Unless you specify an order that guarantees the order of each row, you CAN NOT assume Oracle will return the data in the same order each time.

Cheers

Tim...